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You mustn’t worry yourself for my sake. Do you recall our week in Cairo—the hostile camels and the thumbless merchant and the snake’s flirtation with your boots? That sojourn was far more perilous than the aggravations I’ve experienced here in Scotland.
The Sinclairs are being difficult, that’s all. I’ve an opportunity to resolve the problem, but it may require extraordinary measures on my part. Mr. Gibbs has offered to help. As it happens, his unwed status could prove serendipitous.
I find your objection to him puzzling. You and I have often traveled alone together.
Ever your servant,
E. Sinclair
*
14 December 1827
Miss Sinclair,
Return to England immediately. Funds are enclosed. This Gibbs fellow may find his own way home.
Do not—whatever your cousins have demanded—do NOT consent to anything rash, particularly marriage.
Your presence at my side isessentialbeneficial tomemy work, and I must insist this quixotic adventure end without delay.
You arenecessaryneededvaluable—
Your continued absence isintolerableexceedinglyvexinginconvenient. Must I retrieve you bodily from the wilds of Scotland? If so, be forewarned: upon my arrival, I shall declare any contracts to which you have agreed null and void, the result of madness. For that is what this is. Utter madness.
You mustn’t marry. Do not marry.
Come home, Euphemia.
—Unsent letter written by Mr. Andrew Farrington to Miss Euphemia Sinclair
*
December 21, 1827
Caithness, Scottish Highlands
Euphemia Sinclair quiteadmired her employer. His sharp wits and dimpled, disarming grin had won him innumerable antiquities, clients, and, she suspected, female companions.
Not her, of course. He’d never aimed his seductive charms in her direction. Rather, he treated her as a valued assistant. A colleague. A wallpaper spinster with superior penmanship.
Which was why she’d never contemplated marrying him, let alone at the point of a dirk.
“Have ye a ring, laddie?” The elderly Scotswoman making the inquiry was blind in her right eye, so her squint was lopsided. Nevertheless, she peered up at Andrew Farrington with acute expectation. “More official that way.”
“I’m afraid a wedding wasn’t part of my travel itinerary.” Mr. Farrington’s glare was colder than Euphemia’s backside, which she assumed was stricken with frostbite, given the lack of sensation.
Henny MacGillivray remained unintimidated. “Ye didnae answer my question.” She tapped his waistcoat with the tip of her blade. “A ring?”
“No.”
She focused on Euphemia. “What of ye, lassie?”
“I can sc-scarcely feel my f-fingers.”
Mrs. MacGillivray scoffed. “Ye’re a wee bit damp. Naught to complain about.”
She was sopping. Freezing. Her sleeve was torn in two places. Her spectacles were bent in three. Her hair was a limp, sagging mass dripping slush into her ear. And she was about to be either dismissed as Mr. Farrington’s private secretary or forced to wed him to appease her third cousin thrice removed.
